It would only be a footnote, and even at that a speculative one, should George W. Bush win re-election on Tuesday. But if the swing state of Ohio goes the incumbent's way after Arnold Schwarzenegger's Buckeye State campaign swing on Friday, California's governor might well be credited for his greatest performance yet.

Saving the world, as he did in his "Terminator" films, is all well and good. But saving the presidency for Bush? Even Jay Leno and "Entertainment Tonight" might not be able to do that role justice.

It won't be an easy stunt, even for the mighty Schwarzenegger. Upstaged by the Osama bin Laden tape Friday, Schwarzenegger waded into a campaign suddenly storm-tossed by unexpected events. Like Bush, he prefers scripted appearances, with him securely in the alpha male role. The bin Laden surprise threatened to out-alpha Schwarzenegger even as he arrived in Ohio on his Republican rescue mission. But then again, as Schwarzenegger knows as well as anyone, every good story ought to pack a wallop or two in the last reel.

If politics is the closest thing we have to a national public theater, this has not been a great year on the boards. As the soul-sapping, spite- filled campaign of 2004 finally draws to a close, few out here in the audience can have found much that's inspiring, elevating -- or even very healthily diverting -- in this year's spectacle.

Schwarzenegger, as he has been in every phase of his career, remains a special case. After his body-building triumphs and Hollywood blockbusters, he entered the political stage with the insouciant ease (and ready access to Leno's "Tonight Show" platform) of a preordained winner. Unlike most nervous, needy office seekers, Schwarzenegger arrived full-blown, as if born from his own Zeus-like head. It was a singular sensation, on display Friday, for the highest national stakes, in Ohio.

Armor-plated with his unique alloy of anti-establishment politics, Hollywood celebrity, bullet-proof bipartisan rhetoric, carefully cultivated outsider status, calibrated diction and delivery and a thin sheen of self- mockery, Schwarzenegger has played his take-action/action-hero governor role with line-perfect precision since his ascension-via-recall last year. Picking his way through the national wreckage of ideology and character assassination, he has timed and choreographed every move and utterance for maximum effect.

He didn't really mean it, we were meant to understand, when he called his opponents in the state budget fracas "girlie men." He was power-lifting language to make a point. Later, as if to prove it, he hoisted the same phrase in his Republican National Convention address.

"Don't be economic girlie men," he instructed those unsure about his party's policies, grinning like a guy who'd just bench-pressed 500 pounds without a grunt. It may be the most remembered line from any political speech all year.

His oddly sculpted face and unreconstructed Austrian accent work to his great advantage. Even the bluntest line or most transparent attempt at humor plays better than it deserves to because it creates a subliminal rooting interest in the crowd. Every coinage or laugh line seems a kind of minor linguistic achievement over pre-existing odds.

After soaking in the ecstasy of the Republican conventioneers, Schwarzenegger basked. "This is like winning an Oscar." Pause. "As if I would know." That kind of self-deprecation (in fact a form of preening about his Hollywood career) puts him on a rhetorical plane neither Bush nor John Kerry can hope to share. It's not just celebrity, but also the blithe, deliberate deployment of it, that creates the kind of galvanic audience response Schwarzenegger routinely generates.

At a Menlo Park rally for Republican Assembly candidate Steve Poizner earlier in the week, Schwarzenegger opened with a weird riff on the Democratic senators from Massachusetts: Kerry's pumpkin-colored tan and Teddy Kennedy's inflated waistline. Never mind that Schwarzenegger's own skin and rusty hair tones can appear strangely synthetic in person or that affectionate Kennedy rapping has become the overworked code for his bedroom bipartisanship (he's married to a Kennedy, Maria Shriver). Standing under a banner that played his own name above Poizner's, Schwarzenegger beamed indestructibly.

The governor went on to offer empathetic praise for an independently wealthy politician (Poizner made his fortune in Silicon Valley). Reminding the crowd that he himself had passed up $30 million to make "Terminator 4," Schwarzenegger aligned himself with Poizner. "Steve, here, wants to give something back," he said. At the end of his brief speech, Schwarzenegger grabbed for Poizner's arm to raise it in presumptive triumph. Instead of the candidate's hand, he caught his coat sleeve at the wrist. Held aloft in Schwarzenegger's mighty paw, Poizner's arm looked tiny, limp, doll-like.

It was, altogether, a routine performance that wowed the faithful. "You know, he gave that speech without looking down at his notes," someone remarked to a friend, who was nodding in agreement. "Pretty amazing." A college-age rally-goer rushed out to the parking lot after it was over and brandished a freshly Schwarzenegger-shaken hand at his friends. "I'm not going to wash it for a week," he vowed.

Schwarzenegger isn't running for office now. Some political handicappers don't think he will again, preferring a one-term-and-out triumph to a potentially muddy re-election run in 2006. But he may be the most potent politician in the country, the one figure the public sees in unambiguous, bold- face terms. He's capitalized on the degradation of the national discourse to appear at once more decisive, reasonable and magnanimous than anyone else onstage.

Several hours after stumping for Poizner, Schwarzenegger stood beside San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (hardly an ally) at a Proposition 1A news conference and declared, "The state will not anymore raid local government." True, Schwarzenegger looked as if he were on enemy turf, surveying the crowd with narrowed eyes and frowning. But his delivery never betrayed his unease. "We all know the state was ripping off the city and county of San Francisco," he remarked with an insider's confident assurance at one point.

Schwarzenegger's achievement and standing in the national consciousness are a genuine marvel to behold, as bizarre, impressive, stupefying and multifaceted, in their way, as the muscle-distending feats of his bodybuilding days.

Gil Cates, artistic director of the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, credits Schwarzenegger's self-discipline and "ability to take the stage, to be the center of attention and focus. Certain people project a sense of who they are so that you feel you know more about them than maybe you really do."

Democratic Assemblyman Mark Leno acknowledges the "great charm and power of his personality," but contends that there's a "Jekyll and Hyde" aspect to Schwarzenegger. "On the one hand, he exhibits this great bipartisanship, and then when he leaves the capital, he's referred to Democrats as thieves and untrustworthy and needing to be 'terminated' on 'Judgment Day.' I've never seen anything like it."

Barbara O'Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at Sacramento State University, contends that the governor's appeal has something to do with "the iconic cultural images of his history as a movie star. Catch phrases from his movies and coinages like "girlie men" that may have strict "denotative" meanings to some listeners carry powerfully suggestive, culturally informed "connotative" meanings to the wider public.

"He's just a good bull," growls Democratic Senate Leader John Burton. "Clearly he's more interesting than some of the other governors. But no, I'm not overwhelmed. What you see is what you get."

For novelist and screenwriter Barry Gifford, Schwarzenegger's appeal may say as much about the public in 2004 as it does about him. "Think about how people don't really read the newspapers or serious literature much anymore. I think there's a kind of relaxation factor here. People really do identify with the characters someone like Schwarzenegger plays. They feel familiar with him."

If that's true, and there's ample reason to believe it is, the connection between Schwarzenegger and the public may offer a telling coda to this year's presidential campaign. At a time of deep collective anxiety about the country's future, voters may feel more grounded by the phenomenon of a willfully self-created, self-parodying celebrity-turned-governor than they do by either Kerry or Bush.

Twenty-seven years ago, in "Pumping Iron," Schwarzenegger entered the public domain as a 28-year-old Austrian-born bodybuilder aglow with confident self-esteem. Grinning impishly at the camera, he declared, "You have to do everything possible to win." It's a line, to his fans' enduring delight, that he's never forgotten.